Friendly Fire
by melight
Summary: Guys please let me know if you'd want to read more of this, or is it utter rubbish and I should put my efforts some place else. Thanks!


Ellikah sat between the roots of a giant Auraxian tree somewhere between The Archives and Snake Ravine outpost. It was dark and silent, the only sounds were made by her own cloaking suit. She was scoping the black horizon and glancing occasionally at the map to see if her motion detectors want to tell her of unwelcomed guests, both friends and foes. She's been waiting here for more than an hour. Then she saw it - a slight trace of motion, an almost indistinguishable breaking of light. Another cloaked infiltrator, but not colored bright purple by her helmet's head-up-display. It meant that her helmet wasn't aware of his presence, which in turn meant he is hostile. From a hostile faction to be more exact.

The running figure uncloaked to reveal a large NC infiltrator. Ellikah smiled to herself. He was clearly uncomfortable in the tight infiltrator suit, held the NS-7 in one hand like a toy and his whole stature was screaming "I'm a heavy, please let me out of this ludicrous costume!". She almost felt sorry for him, but couldn't help but enjoy the body features emphasised by the tight suit.

The running figure cloaked again while shortening the distance between himself and the tree she was sitting under. While he kept coming closer, she kept replaying in her head the first time they've met.

_3 weeks earlier_

She liked the "Chaos Squads" idea from the beginning, and took great pride in the fact that she was offered to take part in it, and serve Vanu with the great devotion the cause deserves. Even though these squads are not sustainable as stand alone combat units in battles of larger scale, they are are sure to bring destruction and confusion if used correctly. The idea was simple - a squad consisting only of infiltrators, which can just appear inside of a base or behind enemy lines. 3 snipers and 9 short ranged ghosts. Each sniper has a short ranged pair for covering his back (and front), and the other 6 short ranged ghosts wreck havoc inside enemy lines, under the watchful eye of the sniper squad members of course.

There were downsides to this approach of course - in an open field this whole squad can't take down even a single Lightning, not to speak of air vehicles. There's also the issue of ammunition and medications, which must be resupplied from hacked enemy terminals for the lack of medics and engineers. And for the same reason there's almost no chance of being revived in the battle field. That's why squad members usually find themselves alone in the field at some point.

This is exactly what happened that day. A routine "make a mess" mission in Zurvan Storage Yard controlled by the NC gone wrong with a sudden appearance of large TR force. Mostly MAXes. They say a force should be balanced in order to be effective, but they've probably never seen a mass of Terran MAXes rushing a base. Ellikah was one of the long rangers that time - and that's what has kept her alive. She heard her covering partner Cerrik shooting and being shot simultaneously and saw him disappearing from the map. That gave her the half second she needed to draw her pistol, roll over and shoot the TR light assault in the head as his helmet showed from behind the rock.

Ellikah began retreating, altering her position to lower grounds so that she could fade into nothingness until she reaches a friendly base and there regroups with her squad. Like Grobero - her mentor in infiltrating exercises - taught her: from rock to tree, from tree to ravine. You mustn't be uncloaked in the open.

She found herself behind a rock, somewhere near the The Palisade, she stopped for a minute to catch her breath, and while she was panting she heard automatic gunfire. 3 barrels at least. It didn't sound too close, so she allowed herself to wait for the cloak to recharge, turned it on and only then raised her head above the rock.

A New Conglomerate heavy assault was dueling a Terran MAX. The big red thing was damn ugly. It's armor was scarred, the barrels of it's guns have definitely seen sights, and that disgusting, little, red head bore the marks of many encounters. The NC heavy on the other hand had almost shiny new equipment. The uniform was crisp, and the yellow and blue on it contrasted wonderfully. A standard issue NC-6 Gauss SAW assault rifle, a pistol and a clumsy rocket launcher laying nearby. A Rookie. She studied him more closely - he was a pretty big fellow, but he moved rather fast - although not very gracefully - dodging and rolling to avoid the slow moving but immensely powerful guns of his opponent. He was running around the max like a madman, clearly with no strategy, trying to earn another 2 seconds each time. He was getting hit by an occasional bullet, and firing an occasional burst back. His end was nearing slowly but surely - the MAX will outfire him, because he has more guns, ammo and is more durable.

Then she saw something she has never seen in her long life as a soldier of Vanu. The heavy swiftly encircled the MAX from the back, ducked and strafed under the massive cannon-arm to stand face to face (or face to chest is more appropriate) with the red giant. The MAX froze for a second, not expecting to see a "softie" infantry troop getting so close to the death machine that he is. The heavy smiled a brazen smile and _punched_ the MAX in the robot face from below! He did no damage of course, except for his own hand maybe. He was definitely not fighting anymore, just letting the MAX driver know that he is not afraid of him, but mocks him. Ellikah felt something. She never felt anything like it before, and if she wouldn't be so humble she would swear - it was The Word of Vanu. Vanu wouldn't speak to simple soldier, even if very skilled. Why would he?

Next her muscle memory stepped in to action. She turned off the cloak, put the cross on the MAXes head and fired. Cloak, reload, uncloak, fire. Again. The MAX was taken by surprise, and lost concentration - headshots from a high velocity Parallax rifle bullets aren't much of a pleasure even for an Exo-Skeleton wrapped warrior. He turned to her, and released a long burst from his left gun. He aimed pretty well, an experienced troop by all means. Three large bullets hit her shoulder - the first two exhausted her personal shield and the third one broke her shoulder and shoulder blade bones. She bit a lip under the helmet. But this short deviation was enough for the rookie to grab his ridiculously uncomfortable rocket launcher and propel an anti-vehicle explosive in to the MAXes side. The explosion was wondrous - parts of Terran technology and tissues flew everywhere.

The shot was taken from a distance too short - the rookie got thrown back by it, and a shard of the giant's armor wounded his leg. He slowly got up, looked around and began limping toward her rock. He was some distance away, she could cloak and just walk away. But something made her stay on the rock, and keep bleeding while the jolly, brazen, inexperienced and totally intriguing NC trooper walked her way. She sat up, and leaned back on the right shoulder - it was less painful that way. She wasn't sure why she's waiting, but she hoped that he's a decent fighter and would kill her quickly. She heard his steps, then the sounds of climbing - must be pretty painful with a torn leg - and then he appeared before her. He was tall and wide even for a heavy assault, she couldn't see his eyes because of the helmet, only the strong jawline and the childish lips - it looked like they're half smiling. They looked at each other for a second without seeing each other's eyes. Then he tore something from his belt and threw to her. She expected to catch a grenade, and respawn 5 seconds later at the nearest VS base. Instead she caught a standard Nanite Systems medkit with a New Conglomerate symbol on it. The unenlightened just gave her his medkit! He smiled at her and said in a celebrating tone "For freedom!". She tried to answer with a call of her own - "For Vanu!", but could hardly make any sound - her throat was damaged by the MAX's bullet also. He smiled again - he was probably crazy - turned around and started climbing back down and away from her.


End file.
